James Connolly is missing, as appetite for a rising grows – and Easter Sunday date is set

January 19th, 1916 James Connolly missing. "He did not return to Liberty Hall after lunch," Desmond Ryan, lieutenant in the Irish Volunteers, would later write in evidence to the Military History Bureau. "He was not seen again until he returned to Surrey House on Saturday night, January 22nd. During the interval he was held in a house in the Lucan area while members of the Volunteers and Military Council – Pearse, McDonagh and Plunkett – carried on discussions with him and convinced him that they were as anxious as he was to bring about a rising.

“They were in a position to inform him that Easter Sunday had been fixed, provisionally, as the date for action. What actually happened during these discussions is not known, as neither Connolly (pictured) nor the others ever divulged details.”

The Irish Times: "The most serious epidemic of influenza ever known to prevail in the United States is disclosed in reports to the Surgeon-General of the Public Health Service. The reports show that the disease is spreading, at an alarming rate and causing many deaths."

Belfast report: “The desire amongst juveniles to form bands or gangs to carry on a scheme of lawlessness is becoming very common in Belfast . . . Six lads were charged in the Belfast Children’s Court with having formed the “Black Lily Gang” and committed certain acts . . . The charges included the larceny of knives, brushes, etc, from a painter’s shop, a tennis racquet and carpet beater from a garden, the theft of a tricycle from a garden, and the larceny of glass opal slides, with the lettering “Gospel meeting to-night” from the Manor Hall, Oldpark Road . . . The RM said he believed the desire for picture houses and cigarettes was responsible for these acts.”

A collection is taken by the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in the streets of Dublin on behalf of the fund for the treatment of the sick and wounded horses belonging to the Irish regiments.

County Court Judge Barry, at the Gorey Quarter Sessions, refuses to reverse the order of magistrates who declined to renew a licence for publican Moses Kenny (Main Street) convicted of having exposed seditious literature on his licensed premises.

January 19th, 2016 Lecture: "The Novel and 1916" by Prof Eve Patten, Jonathan Swift Theatre, Arts Building, TCD . The representation of the Rising in fiction from 1917 to the present day.